My advice: Get the Alk up to 8 dKH ASAP and stop worrying about pH. Stop watching pH. Unless coral shows stress, the tank will be fine.
I have not checked pH in any one of the many hundreds of tanks I've set up and worked on for more than 15 years. Starting in 1993, pH was one of the things I checked, until about 1996 when I found out about Alkalinity and it's importance in the overall scheme of things.
I frequently check Alk and Ca and rarely worry about Mg.
Ca and Mg can be increased a lot (200 ppm) and very quickly without any ill effects. It's best if Alk is not increased faster than about 1 dKH in a day, but I have increased it by almost 2 dKH all in one dosage and the tank did not show any bad effects, but that was going from Alk of 5.x to ~7.x. (If a tank is in distress, it's okay to raise/lower some things quickly to healthy levels.) Like I indicated above, add enough Alk solution to get it up to 8 dKH today. Leave the daily dosing regimen as is and follow Alk and Ca for the next few days. Then adjust the dosing accordingly.
Drawing skimmer air from outside is what a lot of people I know have done, but did you know that algae growth is a very natural way to help keep pH at healthy levels. It's a new tank with limited algae growth, am I right? Chances are, there's very little Coralline Algae too. In this case some Macroalgae placed in the display would be a great thing for a whole host of reasons. I have some beautiful Feather Caulerpa available.
Another good move would be, if there is a Refugium, run the lights for a longer photoperiod, even 20 hours/day would be good. 24/7 illumination works for temporary periods to increase pH and reduce pollution but just like humans, algae also needs to sleep for at least a few hours during times of hard work.
Text/Call 808-345-1049 for some of this beautiful Caulerpa. http://utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=83623" rel="nofollow - http://utahreefs.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=83623
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